Apple has cited unspecified production problems for the delays. The most recent estimate is that the white phones will finally be available to the average consumer in the spring.

Wozniak, who left his full-time post with Apple in the late '80s but continues a close working relationship with CEO Steve Jobs, may have had an inside track on snagging the much-anticipated white phone.

Then again, he might not notice one extra phone. Wozniak said he routinely carries around between five and 10 of them.

On Wednesday, Wozniak suggested to CNN that the phone that he called "my white iPhone" might have merely been a modified black one.

"Could be stickers?" he wrote in an e-mail. "It's modded -- which introduces defects -- so I carry a black one also."

CNN touched base with him after Apple-news blog 9to5 Mac reported that a reader e-mailed Wozniak about this post, and that Woz suggested the phone might be modified with a kit a Chinese teenager was selling before being shut down by Apple.

Wozniak said something similar Wednesday to CNN. "I saw a post and got in quick and ordered my set of parts," he wrote.

Which doesn't sound exactly the same as "That was not a real white iPhone" to us.